Listening maps and plans: track the speaker
Fix the entrance and direction first
- In IELTS Listening plan, map and diagram labelling, you match the spoken description to a visual and select labels from a list. Read the options and locate the starting point before the recording begins.
- On a building plan, mark the entrance and the north arrow. If the speaker says turn left, ask which way they are facing at that moment. The left side of the page is not always the speaker's left.
- Known labels are anchors. If the workshop and reading room are already printed, you can use them to locate a junction without solving a blank.
The map stays still. The speaker keeps turning. Only one of them is trying to confuse your pencil.
Before a map-labelling recording, which two things should you fix first?
The entrance anchors the route; the north arrow lets you interpret left and right as the speaker moves.
Practice plan and answer list
Choose from the list: gallery · lockers · membership desk · staff kitchen. Write the correct place for A, B and C. One option is unused.
- The entrance is at the bottom. The workshop and reading room are named, so do not assign either to A, B or C.
- Before reading the worked script, trace a route from the entrance through the junction to C. This makes before, after and at the end easier to place.
Which two rooms are already named on the plan and can act as anchors?
Workshop and Reading room are printed near the junction. Gallery is still an option for a blank.
Worked example from an original script
This is a written strategy example. An actual IELTS Listening question plays a recording once; you would not see this script during the test.
“Come in through the south entrance and face the main corridor. The lockers are immediately on your left. Opposite them, on your right, is the membership desk. Walk straight on to the junction. The workshop is in the west wing, and the reading room is across from it in the east wing. Keep going north, past both of those rooms, to reach the gallery at the end of the corridor. The staff kitchen is upstairs, so it is not on this plan.”
- A = lockers. Immediately on your left is the lower left room when you enter facing north.
- B = membership desk. Opposite them, on your right points across the corridor from A.
- C = gallery. The route continues north beyond the two printed rooms and ends at C.
- Staff kitchen is the unused option. The script mentions it deliberately, but says it is upstairs and outside this plan.
Match the three blank rooms to the original script.
Facing north from the entrance, lockers are left, the desk is opposite on the right, and the gallery is beyond the junction at the north end.
Why is 'staff kitchen' the unused option?
The speaker mentions the kitchen but explicitly places it upstairs. A mentioned word is not automatically a correct label.
Recover when the route bends
- Put your finger at the last confirmed place. Follow each movement in order; never jump straight to a familiar word on the map.
- Treat opposite, past, at the end and upstairs as relationships. They are often more useful than a room name heard in isolation.
- If the speaker corrects a direction, use the corrected route. Do not force an earlier guess to fit it.
- Once the recording moves on, move your eyes too. Return to a missed label only when there is time to check; a later landmark may make it clear.
- Source checked on 24 September 2026: official IELTS Listening plan/map/diagram labelling format. The library, plan, script and answer list are original teaching material, not an official or voiced test set.
You enter from the south, face north and turn right. Which compass direction are you now facing?
Right from north is east. Track the speaker's current facing, not an unchanging side of the page.